The boy with golden eyes
by Frank Kjesus
Summary: My take on Magnus' early years. Will probably mostly focus on his life after his mother and stepfather's deaths, but who knows. Mostly linear story, but there will probably be a few one-shots in non-chronological order or I will post them seperately. Partial SYOC, see my profile for details.
1. Yoshiko

At midnight the streets of Batavia were nearly deserted. No one walked by the light of the moon for fear of what lurked in the shadows. The full moon in particular kept the people of Batavia indoors. The moonlight filled the streets with silver light, drawing the warm colors from the walls and leaving the city looking like charcoal painting. Yoshiko found it quite beautiful, looking down on the street from the rooftop as she crept carefully towards the next house. She easily kept her balance despite the slickness after the rain. To her the aftermath of the rain just left the city more beautiful. Above it all, away from the stench of the street and after the hustle of the day left the city quiet, she found such peace and beauty she never wanted day to break.

Concealed by her grey cloak she hurried along, eager to find her target. She had seen the family that lived there leaving early that afternoon with bags and suitcases, clearly leaving. She had been eyeing the neighbourhood for days, hoping for an opportunity. Finally her day had come. Movement down in the street caught her eye and she crouched down to be less noticeable. Looking down she found a man leaving one of the houses. He was carefully looking over his shoulder and trying to be quiet. Yoshiko figured he was on his way to or from his mistress' quarters. As the man walked down the street in the opposite direction of where Yoshiko was heading she let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. It would be easier to creep along unnoticed without someone heading the same way.

Just as she was about to keep going she spotted more movement in the dark. This time is was something on four legs, something furry silently creeping out of an alley opposite of the man's house. _Werewolf_ , she thought, surprise mixed with equal parts disgust and interest. She had heard there was a small pack of werewolves in Batavia, but had never seen one. They were rare outside of Europe and Yoshiko hadn't quite believed the rumours. Seeing the creature with her own eyes she couldn't help but wonder how they had gotten there.

The wolf suddenly turned it's head and looked up at her, baring it's teeth. Even from so high above him it was terrifying. The sharp teeth gleaming silver in the moonlight, the eyes, so unlike human eyes and the mere size of the beast. It was enough to make her want to scream for help. She bit her tongue and met the wolf's gaze, trying to look as unafraid and defiant as she could.

"I have no quarrel with you, wolf," she tried to tell it without speaking. "Go on your way and I will not bother you."

The wolf held her gaze for another horrid second. Then he broke off in a silent run after the man. Yoshiko was amazed at his speed and silence. She allowed herself another minute to let the chill of the meeting pass. She didn't know what she would have done if he had attacked. Would she have screamed for help? Ran off? Tried using her magic? She wasn't sure how well her powers would work when she was this scared or if they'd work on werewolves the same as mundanes. A shout that ended as soon as it began told her the wolf had caught up to the man. Shaking off her fear she kept going, lightly jumping from the roof of one house to the next.

After passing a few more alleys and having calmed her fear of the wolf, Yoshiko finally arrived at her destination. The house was small, but well-kept. There was no light inside that she could see. She took a deep breath to focus and gather her magic before the gently unhooked the latch of the window and imagined it opening. From her perch on the roof across the street from the house she could see the bedroom and most of the parents' bed through the now open window. It was empty.

Yoshiko took a deep breath and a few steps back. Running lightly over the roof she jumped across towards the house. Landing with her upper body inside and her lower body outside knocked her breath out of her and she silently thanked whatever deities were around that she hadn't chosen an inhabited house. The window was very narrow and she found no other way of entering than to put her hands on the floor and use her arms the wriggle in. Again she thanked the deities that no one was around to see her struggle.

When she finally managed to get her feet in she brushed the dust off her loose pants and surveyed the room. The room was darker than it had been outside, without the moonlight. She resisted the urge to use her magic, too scared of attracting unwanted attention.

From what she could see the room was quite sparingly decorated. They were clearly less well-off than the neighbourhood would suggest. Finding nothing of value in the parents' bedroom, except some rather nice jewellery she didn't think would be missed right away, Yoshiko kept going.

After searching the entire house and finding little of value Yoshiko felt defeated. Sure she had wasted her time she went back up to the parents' room to close the window and her back out. Then she heard it.

It was a small sound, just a creak of the floorboards, but it sent chills down Yoshiko's spine. She was sure she would be found out, sure that she would be forced to use her magic on three innocent mundanes because she had decided to break into their house. Silently cursing herself she turned and walked into the parents' room, hoping to not find anyone. She couldn't imagine what Ares would do to her if he found out that she'd left witnesses.

Swallowing her fear and all the other emotions that welled up in her, Yoshiko scanned the room looking for anything that could tell her if someone was hiding there. Not finding anything she looked under the bed. Nothing. She checked the hall again, but found nothing. At last she saw the dresser in the corner. The door was ever so slightly open and she could have sworn it had been closed when she entered before. Creeping slowly closer she prepared herself for what she might have to do. If she found the family or some servant or poor child she would need to silence them, whatever it took. She felt the magic crackling at her fingertips as she stepped closer, raising her fist to strike.

A pair of golden-green eyes with big round pupils looked back at her. The tension of the magic immediately left her hands, making small cracking sounds and leaving a burnt smell.

"Hi, kitty," she cooed, crouching down and extending her hand. "I'm not going to hurt you, baby. I thought you were someone else."

Opening the door of the dresser completely she felt the relief washed away by shock. In the dresser there was no cat. Instead she found a small boy with eyes like a cat.

—-

"Come in!" Ares called over his shoulder after hearing footsteps approaching his door. He didn't need to turn around to know that it was Yoshiko who stood in his doorway. He told himself it was because he was exceptionally good at sensing people, but it was really more that the twins would be all over him asking what he was doing before he could have finished telling them to enter. "Did you have a successful trip, Shiko?"

"Yes," the girl answered timidly. So much of her strict upbringing still lingered in her. Ares turned away from his potions to look at her. He could tell she felt guilty for needing something. Her head was bent, and she was looking at the floor rather than at him. Her submission made him feel powerful, but somehow guilty. "The family had left the house."

"But?" She looked up at him. Her eyes never failed to take his breath away. All the universe was in them, shining to him from within her.

"But there wasn't much there," she answered, her eyes looking away from him and over at the vials on the shelves. The room was filled with shelves of books, scrolls and vials of different sorts. A table stood against the wall behind Ares, overflowing with more vials and bottles. The room always smelled like magic. In a corner stood the bed where Ares slept, it was quite the lucrative arrangement as he never needed to go far to get to work or to bed after work.

"Why don't you come in, Shiko?" He gestured to bed, eager to have her relax. She shook her head, but raised her eyes to his again. With a shaky breath she opened the door more, revealing a small child standing next to her. The child clung to Yoshiko's pants, little fists balled in the navy fabric. Ares guessed it was a boy by his short hair, and he was young, Ares didn't imagine he could be any older than eight unless he was very small for his age. The child looked filthy, and was so skinny Ares was sure he could have snapped the boy's arm like a twig. Neither the boy nor Yoshiko would look at him.

"He was all alone in the house, Ares," the woman began, talking fast. "I found him in the dresser when I was about to leave, but I couldn't just leave him there, you know that. Look at him, he probably hasn't eaten in days."

"He probably hasn't taken a bath in weeks either," Ares replied, not quite angry, but there was an edge in his voice. "But there are hundreds of children in Batavia who haven't eaten or bathed in days,do we take all of them in? Why is he different?"

"Because he is like us!" The defiance in Yoshiko's voice was unlike anything Ares had heard from her. She met his own gaze, saw the confusion and nodded towards the boy. Ares' expression softened as he got down on his knees to get a better look at the child. At first the boy wouldn't look at him, but when Yoshiko bent down too he finally looked at Ares and he understood. The golden-green eyes were unmistakably the mark of a warlock.

"Get him some food and take some blankets and pillows from the twins," Ares sighed, giving in. Strays were Yoshiko's great weakness and she was his. "Maybe he'll be useful someday."

"He can stay?"

"He can stay," Ares smiled at Yoshiko's great joy. She beamed at him and moved toward him as if to hug him, but stopped herself and instead took the little boy's hand and turned to leave. The boy just looked confused to Ares, but he had never been good at understanding children.

"Thank you," Yoshiko mouthed over her shoulder as she lead the boy out of the study and down the hall.

"Yeah, yeah," Ares mumbled, rolling his eyes. "And give him a bath would you? He smells!"

—-

Dawn was just breaking as Yoshiko finally got to bed. The boy was sleeping on top of the pillows and blanket next to her bed. She had put them down to go find a mattress or something soft for him to sleep on, but when she got back to her room the boy was already asleep. She had fed him some _soto,_ which he wolfed down so fast she regretted not feeding him sooner. He was very agreeable and followed her like a duckling following it's mother, but never said a word. Yoshiko didn't want to push him, not yet, but his silence assured her that his story was not a pleasant one. When she had drawn him a bath her suspicions were confirmed. He would not go near the water. She tried everything she could, different temperatures, putting her arm in to show it wasn't dangerous, but nothing helped. He stood as far away from the tub as he could and would not move an inch, no matter how much she pulled at his arm. Eventually she had given up and decided that bathing the boy would be a problem for another day.

When at last she was in her bed looking down at him sleeping sweetly she couldn't help but wonder what could have happened to him that made him so scared of the water.


	2. Ares

"How do you know he even can do magic?"

"Yeah, how do you know he's not an ifrit?"

"Maybe he's not a warlock at all."

"Maybe he's just a mundane with weird eyes!"

"Or maybe he's a cat that got turned into a mundane!"

The twins would not stop pestering her about the boy. When she first brought him into the main room the wouldn't leave him alone, asking him all about where he came from, who he was and what he could do. Yoshiko had let them be at first, hoping stimulation from someone closer to his own age might encourage him to talk, instead of opening up the boy seemed to draw further back. He avoided making eye contact and refused to open his mouth to do anything but eat. When the girls failed to find out anything from him they went for Yoshiko, asking if she knew who he was, where she had found him, why he was there and anything else they figured they had a right to know.

"I don't know," was all she could say to most of their questions, with the occasional "Isra, don't say that!" and "Leave him be, Sahar!", none of which effectively stopped new questions from arising. It wasn't that she didn't think they made valid points, because of course the boy could be an ifrit or something other than a warlock, but she desperately wanted the boy to have powers. It wasn't for her sake, but for his own. A warlock without powers was a lonely creature, more helpless even than a mundane. It would greatly reassure her if she knew he could defend himself.

So she tried showing him how to use magic. She began small, just levitating oranges. Demonstrating, then asking him to try, then demonstrating again when he didn't do anything, then moving his hands through the movement, then repeating the process with a new move. Nothing worked. It wasn't that he seemed uninterested, he watched her carefully when she performed her magic, but he would not for the life of him try on his own. Yoshiko had gotten the twins to try showing him, but they had quickly grown tired and moved on to a game of tag. In the backyard behind the house she let them test their wings as long as they stayed close to the ground.

She remembered the first time she saw them. She had been so astounded by the beauty of their multicoloured wings that she had forgotten for a moment that they were children and not just beautiful birds. She had just met Ares after found her in a brothel catering to mundanes and shadowhunters with more exotic tastes. He had bought her freedom and taken her to live with him. One day he came home with two children, identical twins. They were wearing beautiful silk dresses and their faces were painted in bright colors. At first they looked like dolls to her. Then she saw their beautiful wings. The colors were exquisite. Turqoise, lilac, indigo, emerald and golden feathers shone in the light. Ares asked her to wash their faces and give them food. They'd stayed with them since.

Their wings were smaller back then, nothing more than decorative. Looking at the twins in now as they chased each other a few feet above the ground, she felt pride well up in her chest. It was always so tempting to let them fly free, but if someone saw, even another warlock, there could be trouble. The twins' beauty came at a very high cost.

She looked over at the boy, who was watching the girls fly with great interest. He was mesmerised by them, his eyes kept darting around, following one of them, then the other. Siting on the ground, looking up at them, Yoshiko couldn't help but think that maybe Sahar was right, maybe he was a cat who got turned into a mundane. It would certainly explain the eyes and the fear of water.

"Don't they look pretty?" She said, trying not to look at the boy too intently. She wanted him to relax, to let his guard down with her. To her surprise, he nodded. Encouraged by this development, Yoshiko sat down next to the boy, looking over at him. He still hadn't taken his eyes off the twins. "Can I ask you some questions?"

The boy knit his brow and Yoshiko quickly assured him he wouldn't have to talk.

"I just want to get to know you a little bit," she smiled at him. He still hadn't looked at her, but this was progress. "Was anyone with you where I found you?"

The boy shook his head.

"Did you run from someone?"

He shook his head and a weight lifted from Yoshiko's mind.

"Are your parents looking for you?"

The boy froze. Yoshiko cursed herself for moving too fast. She watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye, hoping she hadn't ruined the moment, that he would run away from her and she'd never see him again. But the boy remained still, just watching the twins flying above his head.

—-

For days they went through the same routine. Yoshiko would take the boy out back and try to show him some easy spells and teach him, and every day he would study her, but never try himself. Then they'd sit and watch the twins, and Yoshiko would try to ask him questions, but now she couldn't get him to open up at all. She was starting to worry that she had burned that bridge. She hadn't managed to get him to go near the water either, but after much convincing she had managed to get him to clean himself up with a wet cloth.

After about a week of trying and not getting anything out of him, Yoshiko was at the end of her rope. She sat in the shade, behind their house after another unsuccessful training session. The house was glamoured to look like a rundown old meatshop to avoid attention, but really it was a rather large building with many windows. Ares still hadn't told her how he had acquired it.

"Any progress?" She felt her shoulders slump at the question, answering it without words. Ares sat down on the ground next to her, handing her a cup with something that looked like milk, but smelled like the aftermath of firecrackers.

"Thank you," she sighed, taking a sip from the cup. The drink was warm and thick and tasted oddly like peanuts. Ares was always experimenting with different ingredients and their effects, often magical and others purely culinary. A warm soothing feeling spread through her limbs and she realised that this drink was not purely culinary.

"Feel better?" Ares smiled at her and she gave a small nod. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I just don't know how to get through to him," Yoshiko said, avoiding Ares' strong gaze. Everything about him was strong, his determination, his faith in her, even his appearance. Even without the stripes that decorated his body he had the look of a wild cat. His wide cheekbones and hooded eyes combined with his strong jaw and determined chin made him the personification of a tiger. "He won't talk to me."

"So the tables have turned," Ares said, the corners of his mouth quirking up in his trademark near-smile. "Come on, Shiko, don't you remember when you first met me? You hardly said a word to me."

Yoshiko didn't know what to say, she didn't want to remember her first meetings with Ares. They were shrouded by other memories of a time she would rather not relive.

"You should give the boy some time," Ares suggested, still looking at her with those deep brown eyes. "He'll come around."

"Maybe," Yoshiko replied bleakly. They sat for a while silently, Yoshiko lost in thought trying to find a way to win the little boy's trust.

"I might need you to go to the market again, and play some tricks," Ares said after some time and for once he avoided looking at her. She knew he hated asking her to go to the mundane market as it was too close to where they had first met, but she also knew that he wouldn't ask unless it was necessary. "I haven't sold as much as I'd hoped lately and with another mouth to feed. I don't want them to-"

"I'll go," Yoshiko said, not letting Ares name their shared fear. He drew a shaky breath and nodded his thanks. They sat out back for a long time in silence, sipping from their cups and trying to find the words to comfort each other.

—-

"Come in," Ares called not turning away from his potions. He was trying his best to get some Angelica herbs out of a jar, but they were too big to fall out and his hand was too big to reach in and pull them out. Too distracted by his efforts he hardly noticed that no one had come in after he called. Slamming the jar down on the table in front of him he turned and ranked the door open. "What?"

He immediately regretted his harsh tone when he saw the little cat-eyed boy Yoshiko had brought in standing outside the door holding a bowl of stew.

"Sorry, kid, come in," he stepped to the side to let the boy enter. Even though he had been in the room before the kid's eyes darted around seemingly trying to see everything at once. "Put that on the table."

The boy did as he was told, but didn't immediately leave. Instead he lingered, eyeing the contents of the different jars and bottles on the shelves. Ares was always careful not to leave the more grotesque parts of his collection out of sight in case the twins wandered in. They weren't too young to see these things anymore, but he could still feel the loss of a precious bezoar that Isra had vomited on after seeing an eyeball in a jar. Letting the boy look around Ares sat down and began wolfing down the stew. Even after Ares had finished the boy still wasn't done looking at all the shelves.

"You interested in potions?" Ares asked, using his mildest tone and trying to find his softest expression. Judging by the boy's timid nod he only half-succeeded. "That's sage, it's good for cleansing a room of demonic energy. If you have demonblood it'll kind of sting your eyes, but it's mostly harmless."

The boy listened with great interest as Ares explained the magical properties of the contents of the bottles and jars, opening some to let the boy have a whiff. The child recoiled at the smell of Bunga Bangkai petals, but stared at the jar for a long time afterwards, admiring the beautiful deep purple color.

"You know, your hands are tiny," Ares remarked, looking at the little boy. The child didn't seem insulted, but merely looked at Ares in confusion. "Here, help me get some of these flowers out of this jar."

He handed the jar he'd been struggling with earlier to the boy, whose little hand went easily into the jar. Thanking the boy Ares took the flower and ground it up. Mixing it with some nightshade, some poppyseeds and then gathering it all in a vial, he explained every step to the boy next to him. Seeing the boy's keen interest Ares felt a pride in his craft and some affection for the boy. He had once been a young warlock scared of the changes happening to him as well. Maybe he hadn't been that boy for almost a thousand years, but watching the boy's eyes trace his every move he could find parts of himself.

"You know," Ares began, as he was finishing cleaning up. "I think I could use an extra pair of little hands in here, how would you feel about helping me sometimes?"

For the first time since meeting the boy, Ares saw him smile.


End file.
